Trying too hard!

[Lysear]

  I recently read a post which basically said how the person just let himself get caught up in an imaginary situation. He had a fantasy, and let his mind drift.

   I have recenty become frustrated with my inability to reach trance. I gave up, and just let my mind drift, and after 10 minutes began feeling early trance like symptoms. Then I tried exiting, and darnwell nearly did it. I think if i had managed to attain a deeper level of trance then I would have exited. I dont have any real problem with exiting, once I am in a trance state. I have proved this to myself in a few situations when I wake up and am already in trance, and then I can quickly exit.
 

   So what did I gain from this experience? I decided that until I found a surefire way to quickly attain trance, I will use the above method for my intentional projections. I will lie down at night or during the day when trying to nap. I will drift off until I feel sensations, then quickly take back hold of my conscious mind and take it from there. I guess I will keep you posted.

   In the meantime, I guess I will experiment with different methods of gaining trance. read up on the various approaches and try to work out the common elements from each one, and create my own.


                                             Lysear.

[Awakened_Mind]

Have you tired the alarm clock method. Wake up an hour early and keep hitting snooze,

-AM

[Lysear]

yeah, but thats not too successful with me.

   Yesterday however, I was experimenting, when I was relaxed, I started to imagine my leg raising, and I got some interesting sensations in my leg and a slight whoosing sound in my ear. I decided to go all old school and just imagine myself floating out of my body, really pushing out, an oldie but a goldie. Once again, if I had been in trance I would have easily gotten out i think.

                  Joe.

[Awakened_Mind]

What do your feel is actually stopping you from hitting trance? Is your body completely relaxed? Have you tried the method of imagining yourself going down? Eg Climbing down a ladder, in an elevator whatever has the sensations of falling.

-AM

[Lysear]

I really dont know.

   I think I need to go back to astral projection 101. Really work hard on developing a program that suits me. I need to just kick my self up the bum and really try hard.

[Awakened_Mind]

I like the attitude 

-AM

[Steel Hawk]

I'm glad you obtained some results with (my?) method. How far did you get? Vibrations? Any strange sensations?

From reading your post I would say it's like walking a knifes edge, it takes time to get it just right.

I think I left this out, when I think about it:

It's hard to actually explain, but I think you do actually have to goto sleep (for a microsecond) and catch it, then bounce out (to being conscious), then go back into the mind drifting and from there create a ringing sound to focus on.. Or anything that you can focus on that doesn't require thought.. Hmmm I think I need to update my theory.

[kiwibonga]

Yeah, the way I see it is you have to let go of the physical brain and shift into another layer of the mind.

The physical brain cannot travel dimensionally, but other parts of your consciousness can. You cannot separate fully without a small break in consciousness, at least definitely not as a beginner. You have to "go under" for a few seconds, and then you wake up in dream world.

You basically invite the subconscious mind to become active while you are still in control of the physical brain. As you slowly start seeing more and more images, you transfer a part of your consciousness to the subconscious side, and you let the physical brain go idle. After a while, you'll realize that you've gained a first person point of view in the imaginary scenario.

The problem is we are too used to doing this when we go to sleep, that's why it's important to put strong intention into it, to actively control that layer of the mind that is external to the physical brain. After practicing it for a few nights, it'll become easier.

[andonitxo]

I would advice you not to take too seriously everything. I mean, when I started up with astral practice I was burdened with so many previous work. So it is best to examine yourself, to take it as a game, not giving it too much importance. What it has to come, ends up comming sooner or later.

It is more important to have faith in oneself than to attach to a rigid schedule.

[iNNERvOYAGER]

It's hard to actually explain, but I think you do actually have to goto sleep (for a microsecond) and catch it, then bounce out (to being conscious), then go back into the mind drifting and from there create a ringing sound to focus on.. Or anything that you can focus on that doesn't require thought.. Hmmm I think I need to update my theory.

Many cycles of bouncing out of sleep and dream to fully lucid hypnogogic can last for a couple hours for me in the early mornings.

A cup of weak coffee seems to help. I wonder if the coffee is becoming a crutch?

After the two hour session, I then get my real caffene fix and have 1 or 2 cups of strong coffee before going to work.